Text and photo by Lenka Purteková
Branislav Adamec is a very interesting person not only for his job, but mainly for his hobby – mountaineering. In Communist times, he represented Czechoslovakia in this sport. The interview was very capitvating, because Adamec experienced many interesting situations in the mountains – but also in life.
His biggest adventure was climbing to the Shisha Pangma Mountain in year 2002. Branislav Adamec, 48, one of the best Czech mountaineers in the Communist times, was member of Czech expedition in Tibetan Himalayas. „It was the only mountain which I didn’t overcome.”
Other two mountaineers, who climbed with him, overcame it too. As he says, he didn’t feel psychically and physically so good to try it alone. In addition he met other climbers and they told him it was impossible to reach the top because of the snow-drifts. Adamec remembers, the snow was glinted in
the sun, but the wind was cold and strong. „It wasn’t so difficult decision in that time, but now I regret it a little.”
As he says, his habit is to do everything for reaching the target. „I think life is full of challenges and we should stand up to them,“ says Adamec, after he climbs down the climbing wall in one bouldering center in Brno. It looks like badly built wall with many colored stumps. Adamec climbs at it without rope as it would be the simplest thing in the world. He is in the height of four meters in the twinkling of an eye.
His life was something like this wall. Sometimes there were many stumps to hold them; sometimes there was only one, but Adamec fought to the end almost every time.
He originates from little village Istebné in the Malá Fatra Mountains in Slovakia. There he was born in 1960. Since he was a little boy, he liked walking in nature. “When you live in country, you are in nature, if you like it or not. Fortunately I loved it.” Furthermore, his father was a hunter, so he often took Adamec into forest.
But he found out he wanted to be a climber at the age of fifteen. In this time he read a book, which wrote Radovan Kuchař, one of the best Czech climbers of all time. “When I read about his adventures I knew one thing: I didn’t want to try it, I wanted to do it.”
Then Adamec started to do everything to realize his dream. First he climbed mountains as a hobby. “I found out, that it was my way to leave the Communist world. In the top of mountain you are absolutely independent, no dictator has power here.” He explains, when he was in mountains, there were no people and no rules. So it didn’t matter if he climbed Mont Blanc or some Czech mountains. “There existed only laws of nature and this is, what I love by now.”
First complication came, when his parents tried to forbid him from climbing. “I think they feared for me, because they thought mountaineering was too dangerous.” They had many arguments, especially with his father. At age 19, when he started to study in Brno, Adamec stopped speaking with him. “I was angry, because he didn’t understand my hobby.” They reconciled together one year later.
His first steps in Brno went to mountaineering club, called Lokomotiva Brno. There he had to pass the training. “I followed all money, energy and time to climbing.” He trained every day. “I never had a talent for climbing. Everything I achieved with hard work.”
This effort repaid after four years, in 1984, when Adamec was invited to the Czechoslovak national mountaineering team. He remembers it was big chance to see many other countries, to leave the Communist world. “When I came to national team, I was really excited. I achieved something, which I never dared to imagine.”
In these times he climbed all over the world. He was in the Altai, Alps, Dolomits and so on. He also experienced many dangerous situations, which are connected with this kind of sport. Once a stone avalanche fell down around him, but he had only small injuries. “Stones, which were big like fridge, went around me. It was fortunate that I survived.”
In 1987 he married. Then his first daughter was born. “When I felt it was too dangerous a situation, I gave up, because now I was responsible for my family,” says Adamec. He still climbed, but not in difficult mountains, so in 1990 he ended his time with national team.
At that time, he was a full-time climber. Now he needed to look for a “more normal” job. First he worked at the municipal office in Brno. But he says he never liked sitting in an office, so looked for a new job. Drifting from job to job, he found the sporting-wear company, Icebreaker. “I feel I want to do it, because it’s connected with my love: sports.”
He also likes, that they use ecological materials, because it doesn’t hurt environment. Now he is the company’s general manager for all of Eastern Europe, the father of three daughters and says he lives in term of decades.
“My first decade was climbing and nothing more. Then in the 90’s it was the working decade. And now? It’s a decade of fulfilled dreams.” He says the first dream he fulfilled was that he loved his job. And his second dream now is to be a mountain guide, because he wants to continue in mountaineering. That is why he tries to train twice or three times a week.
Usually, he scales at climbing walls in Brno. Mostly he climbs alone; sometimes with a friend, David Chovanec. He is also Adamec’s company colleague. “In summer we also climb together in nature, and I feel safe with him,” Chovanec says.
He says he thinks it’s great to feel the Adamec’s confidence, because it helps him feel confident, too. “Adamec is a good climber. Why? A good climber is an alive climber,” Chovanec says with a smile.
Adamec’s future is also connected with climbing. This year he’ll take the mountain-guide exams. “This way,” he says, “I hope I can teach other people and share my experiences with them.”
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